]]>There’s a new competitor to the Surface Pro 3, not that Microsoft will mind. Like Microsoft’s hybrid, Dell’s updated Venue 11 Pro packs full laptop power in a tablet, and plugs into various keyboard docks and covers to become a professionally oriented workstation.

The Venue 11 Pro 7000 Series — a catchy name consumers will love — starts at $799, and for that price, you’ll get a 2GHz Intel Core M processor, 4GB of RAM, and 64GB of internal flash storage powering a 10.8-inch 1080p OLED touchscreen. That compares well to the entry-level Surface Pro 3, which has a superior (on paper) 12-inch 2160 x 1440 touchscreen, the same RAM and storage, but a less powerful Intel Core i3 processor.

Like the Surface, there are a variety of component upgrades available, including one model with a built-in LTE modem. Unlike the Surface Pro, however, Dell will be including a tablet keyboard case with the entry-level model — which is arguably a $110 value, and in my opinion, are essential for the dual-use flexibility that these kind of tablet-laptop hybrids advertise.

Tablets that function as laptops (with a keyboard case) or desktops (with a dock) are important to watch as Windows 10 continues to blur the line between touch interfaces and the traditional keyboard and mouse.

Dell makes other tablets that can run a full version of Windows 8, like the Venue 8 Pro my colleague Kevin Tofel likes. But the key to the Dell Venue 11 Pro 7000 is that instead of an inexpensive Intel Atom chip, it’s using Intel’s new Core M processors, which are built on a new Broadwell design and provide tablets with a processor powerful enough for a laptop but doesn’t require a fan.

It’s safe to say that Dell making a Surface Pro-style tablet won’t be ruffling feathers at Microsoft, which has sometimes called the Surface a “reference design” for its hardware partners to emulate. I’m sure there are Surface fans eager for a Core M-equipped Surface Pro, and it looks like they’ll have to wait until next year. But starting November 11, you can check out a sweet Dell tablet that does essentially the same thing.

]]>Although the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft’s tablet-laptop hybrid, was announced back in May and officially released in June, several models were not yet available at launch. As expected, Microsoft completed the Surface Pro 3 lineup on Friday, adding one model with a Intel Core i3 processor and two with high-end Intel Core i7 processors. Most importantly, the Core i3 model will be the entry level Surface Pro 3, bringing the cost of entering the ecosystem down to $799.

My colleague Kevin Tofel used the Surface Pro 3 as his daily computer for several weeks back in June and was impressed. He found it to be “perhaps the best and most powerful hybrid computer to date.” The idea behind the Surface Pro 3 is that it’s a skinny and light tablet running Windows, but can turn into a fully fledged workstation — thanks to its laptop-class processors — using a variety of add-on accessories, like the Type Cover or a $200 docking station (which is expected to be released later this month.)

I must admit though, the rollout and marketing of the Surface Pro 3 continues to confuse me. It’s a great device, but it seems like Microsoft still doesn’t quite know how to sell hardware directly to consumers. Microsoft heavily touted the $799 price point in its marketing materials and it was repeated in hundreds of blog posts back in May when the device was announced. How many frustrated customers did Microsoft lose between launch day and yesterday who discovered the least expensive Surface Pro 3 they could purchase started at $1000? That price isn’t even counting the optional $130 Type Cover, which is essentially a must-have and is prominently featured in most advertisements for the system.

]]>When Microsoft announced the Surface Pro 3 on Tuesday, a lot of people were surprised it didn’t announce a Windows RT-based “Surface Mini,” as had been rumored for weeks before the event. Microsoft did in fact have a Surface Mini in development but pulled it recently because CEO Satya Nadella and Executive VP Stephen Elop thought it “wouldn’t be a hit,” according to a report from Bloomberg. Nadella and Elop’s reported concerns echo what my colleague Kevin Tofel said last month when he reviewed the Dell Venue 8, a full Windows 8 tablet at the same likely size and price range as the unreleased Mini.

]]>Since Windows 8 was released in 2012, users have been waiting for a touch interface for Microsoft Office. After all, Windows 8 has a huge emphasis on touch-first, but Microsoft’s most important software suite is stuck with desktop-style controls. We still don’t know when a touch-first version of Office will make it to our Windows devices, but due to a document released (and then retracted) by Microsoft Research, we now have a good idea of what it might look like.

Word

Excel

Powerpoint

Outlook

The screenshots included in the document primarily focus on the editor interface, so it’s hard to compare it directly to Office for iPad, the touch-focused version of Office launched earlier this year. At the very least, the interfaces are superficially different: Word on iPad features a navigation bar at the top of the screen with traditional Word options like Insert, Layout, and View. The bar on iPad also includes back and forward buttons, which are absent from the leaked screenshots and would most likely be addressed through a Windows gesture. Both the leaked Windows version and the iPad versions include a truncated ribbon with fewer but well-selected formatting options.

A subtitle, “UX proposal for pen and ink for Office Gemini,” confirms the screenshots are of Microsoft’s mobile Office interface: Gemini is the code name it has been using for touch Office since at least early 2013.

The Research document, spotted by Paul Thurrott, has a 2013 copyright date and concerns a pen-based interface currently under development. The Office screenshots are included because many of the primary use cases for a pen involve scribbling over Office files. The pen and ink features are intriguing, as the Surface Pro currently supports digital pens, but there are rumors that the feature could be headed to the ARM-based Surfaces in the near future.

While Microsoft has pulled the document from its Research site, mirrors are still available around the web if you want even more screenshots. Microsoft is hosting a Surface event tomorrow and we’ll be on hand for any announcements and news.

]]>Months of speculation and rumors around a small Microsoft Surface Mini tablet could culminate in a product soon. While the physical evidence may be flimsy, a manufacturer is taking pre-orders for a case to fit a small Surface tablet, which Microsoft hasn’t announced. Sources tell Microsoft watcher Mary Jo Foley, however, that the Surface Mini tablet is “waiting in the wings for an announcement” so perhaps the case is an early leak after all.

I think the chances of a Microsoft Surface Mini launch are high but I’m not sold on the need for it. At least not yet, based on the whispers of what the device might actually be.

Foley’s sources suggest the Surface Mini will be around seven to eight inches in size and powered by an ARM processor, just like the original Surface and Surface 2 products. That would make the device fan-less and likely give it good battery performance; say 8 to 10 hours, if not better. It will likely come with a digital stylus for on-screen note taking and other pen-based activities. Sounds good so far, right?

There’s a problem though: There are already a number of solid Windows slates available in that size that can run for 8 or more hours on a change. Some even have a digital pen. And here’s the kicker: These current models all run Windows 8.1 not Windows RT, which is still a bit hobbled in terms of its app ecosystem and lack of legacy Windows app support.

These slates also start at reasonable prices: You can nab a Dell Venue Pro 8 for $249, for example and get Microsoft Office Home & Student 2013 software included. Similar offers and devices are available from Lenovo, Toshiba, Asus and others. I made a similar argument against the original Surface tablets last year, noting that the Intel-powered Windows 8 slates offered more functionality, better app support and similar battery life for comparable prices. Microsoft may need to price a Surface Mini at $200 to $249 or less to generate interest against the incumbent products.

There is one difference in the market now, however, which is why I noted above that I’m not sold on a Surface Mini yet: Universal Windows Apps can help bridge the app gap here.

This strategy, announced last month by Microsoft, makes it easy for developers to create one Windows app that can — with relatively minimal effort — run on Windows Phone, Windows RT and the Windows 8 platforms.

Photo by Kevin Tofel/Gigaom

That will certainly help the current Microsoft Surface product and any new Surface Mini, should the company offer it. But uptake time from developers is a factor: Why try to sell yet another Surface product if developers aren’t making their apps compatible?

Foley suggests that the touch-friendly version of Office for Windows could arrive in tandem with a Surface Mini announcement. That too would help a small slate from Redmond. Hopefully if Microsoft has learned one thing from its initial costly Surface efforts, it is timing. As a it plays follow the leaders in the tablet game, Microsoft can’t take the approach of “if we build it, they (developers and consumers) will come.”

That’s half of the total market for next year and I think it’s a reasonable estimate. Android accounts for the bulk of mobile phone sales around the world these days and last year it topped iOS in the tablet market too. Combine that market clout with falling traditional PC sales and it’s easy to see why Gartner’s figures are solid. It’s also easy to see how the early ripples of computing change have become big waves of a shift that are crashing down on Microsoft.

Of those expected 2.6 billion computing device sales, Gartner figures 379.3 million of them will run Microsoft Windows. That number includes Windows Phones, tablets running Windows as well as traditional laptops and desktops. Quickly doing the math, that means for every one Microsoft Windows device sold, 3.6 Android devices are purchased.

Looking at 2013’s device sales puts that in perspective and further illustrates the shift towards mobile. Last year, Gartner says 325.1 million Windows devices were sold, so Microsoft isn’t expected to see much market share growth through 2015. Android will, however, as it ran on 879.8 million devices last year. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the trend here, as well as to further suggest that Microsoft has missed much of the mobile transition of late.

Still, there are many valid reasons for consumers and businesses to keep buying and using Windows devices; they’re not going away any time soon.

For Microsoft this is bad news because it really, really wants folks to move along to its newer and more touchy-feely Windows 8, which launched in October 2012. Windows 7 is, after all, four years old. Meanwhile, HP — and some other constituencies want to know what the big rush is. (Windows 9 is reportedly on tap for a 2015 release.)

As has been pointed out ad nauseum,Microsoft Windows is a victim of its own success. Various incarnations of the OS run hundreds of millions of desktops and laptops, but the percentage of those devices running Windows 8 is anyone’s guess, and WInodws 9 is rumored to be due next year. The venerable Windows XP, which launched in 2001 (!), will be “end of lifed” in April, sparking massive upgrades for tens of thousands of ATMs that run the OS as well as millions of PCs. But Microsoft is waffling even on that, recently saying it will provide malware updates for XP into July 2015.

The fact that HP, once one of Microsoft hardware BFFs, is so publicly touting an old version of Windows shows a further unraveling of that alliance. A cynic might suggest that HP is touting Windows 7 because its current hardware isn’t up to Windows 8 standards

]]>It’s a safe bet many people bought or received a new smartphone or tablet for the holidays. Which ones did they get? That’s difficult to say for sure, but with some data from Chitika, we can get a pretty good idea. The company shared web surfing data through its ad network on more than 300,000 websites and found that while Apple still rules the roost, Amazon’s Kindle and Microsoft’s Surface tablets were used quite a bit online as 2013 came to a close.

On the phone side, only Apple’s iPhone saw a holiday surge of web surfing traffic, which suggests that a few new iPhone 5c and 5s handsets may have been under the Christmas tree. That “surge” wasn’t much of one though: iPhone users surfed the web 1.8 percent more during the holidays as compared to the non-holiday season. Still, the iPhone accounts for 54.3 percent of all web traffic in the U.S. and Canada as measured by Chitika.

While the handset data isn’t that surprising, the tablet information is when you consider that Microsoft’s Surface products got a small holiday surfing bump and account for 2.3 percent of all web surfing based on Chitika’s data. That may not sound like much, but the data also shows that Google Nexus tablet owners hold only 2 percent of the surfing usage. Microsoft appears to be catching up to web usage on Samsung tablets as well, which Chitika pegs at 5.9 percent.

Apple’s iPad is the only measured tablet that actually saw its browser usage share decline over the holidays as compared to its competitors, but the tablet is still the top dog… by a vast margin. Chitika’s data suggests that more than three-fourths of all tablet-based web-browsing is still done on an iPad in the U.S. and Canada.

Bear in mind that this data is simply a proxy based on a single ad network. Even though it’s a large network, the information doesn’t offer exact market share or phones or tablets. Instead, it offers a glimpse of actual usage to represent the market at large.

This post was updated at 12:00pm PT to clarify and correct Apple’s tablet browser usage share over the holidays.

]]>The only constant in technology is change, and the world has changed a lot in the 13 years that Steve Ballmer was CEO of Microsoft, one of the greatest companies the tech industry has ever produced. But that 13 years was a series of missed opportunities for Microsoft, which did not handle the transition from the unconnected PC era to the mobile cloud era nearly as well as a host of rivals that were either struggling to stay afloat or dorm-room fantasies when Ballmer took the wheel.

It’s a decidedly mixed legacy. Under Ballmer Microsoft’s revenue and profit grew and it maintained a strong and healthy relationship with enterprise computing customers, but its relevance among consumers fell to levels not seen since The Cosby Show was America’s most popular entertainment option. Apple and Google are creating the future of personal computing while Microsoft is scrambling to catch up in a market it helped invent. Ballmer’s inability to recognize these trends until it was too late has created big problems down the road for Microsoft.

As Ballmer prepares for his retirement, which Microsoft announced Friday will happen within the next 12 months, we present a report card on how Microsoft fared on the subjects most important to us during his tenure.

Ballmer graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1977. He did not do quite as well as Microsoft CEO.

— Tom Krazit

Cloud/enterprise apps

In cloud infrastructure, Ballmer’s Microsoft had a big, bold vision for Windows Azure. Unfortunately its timing was off. When the company finally launched Azure in February 2010, it was as a full-fledged Platform-as-a-Service. And by that time reams of developers at startups — and increasingly at larger companies too — had fallen in love with Amazon’s even-geekier Infrastructure-as-a-Service, which had been out a couple of years.

By the time Microsoft delivered IaaS-like functionality in Azure last April, AWS had churned out a truckload of new services and options. To sum up, Azure was late to market and then ended up not being what the market wanted. But on the plus side it has huge scale and is now offered in very competitive price scenarios of the sort only a Microsoft (or a Google) could offer. The question is whether its delivery of what people really wanted is too late to make a dent in AWS at a time when Google is also in the IaaS fray. Grade: B

On desktop apps and Microsoft’s effort to move users from the cash cow of full Office to SaaS-based Office 365, the jury is out. But Office 365 adoption, from what I can see, is underwhelming. Grade: C

Overall grade: B-/C+
— Barb Darrow

PCs/mobile

Ballmer was in charge for the launch of both the company’s arguably best and worst platform products: Windows XP and Windows Vista. Windows 7 undid some of the Vista damage, which Ballmer said Friday was his greatest regret as CEO. But Ballmer personified the company’s failure to create a compelling consumer tablet — after more or less inventing the category early in his reign with Windows Tablet PC — in 2010. On stage at the Consumer Electronics Show, Ballmer showed off the HP Slate running Windows 7, fumbling with the non-optimized on-screen controls during the demonstration. Ballmer’s Microsoft finally got closer to the target with Windows 8 and its Surface product, but it hasn’t yet been as successful as iPads and Android tablets. In fact, just last month Microsoft was forced to write down $900 million worth of Surface tablet inventory after it became clear the devices weren’t selling.

From a more mobile perspective, under Ballmer Microsoft made better strides in handsets. Windows Mobile was beyond saving in the late 2000’s following the debut of the iPhone and it was smart to start anew with Windows Phone. The idea was sound, but Ballmer didn’t get the team to execute quickly enough compared to the competition. As a result, Ballmer will be leaving behind a Microsoft that’s still an underdog in the mobile space while it also combats a market shifting from traditional computing to mobile and cloud-based activities.

Xbox/gaming

Perhaps the best thing that Steve Ballmer ever did for Xbox was to stay the hell out of its way. Though he has presided over all of the consoles Microsoft has released, Ballmer has only been in charge of the Xbox business directly in the last month, when former Xbox President Don Mattrick left for the CEO job at Zynga. In fact, Ballmer took a hands-off role with the Xbox’s business and development, leaving it to Mattrick and his predecessors, Peter Moore and J. Allard, with little argument.

But Ballmer was influential in two regards. First, Ballmer hired Moore to boost the Xbox 360 project after the original console’s modest performance. Moore led the Xbox 360 to triple the sales of the original Xbox, and brought it into homes everywhere, cementing Microsoft’s place in gaming. Second, Ballmer championed the idea of the Xbox as a “living room device” rather than a game console, something that has indelibly affixed itself to Xbox’s vision and will be most fully realized with the Xbox One.

Hopefully Ballmer will make his best decision yet in finding someone to lead Xbox into 2014 and beyond. While he didn’t make much of an impact directly, his influence on the infrastructure and hierarchy has been commendable.

Overall Grade: B+
— Lauren Hockenson

Bing/Research

Looking back at Ballmer’s reign in mid-2013, his legacy in the field of computer science should be pretty positive. Whatever his motives were at the time, he oversaw the launch of Microsoft’s Bing search engine and didn’t kill it even when it became clear (in most outsiders’ eyes, at least) the service would always play second fiddle to Google search. That might turn out to be a really good decision.

Ballmer also kept Microsoft Research funded.

The combination of data and systems-engineering experience that comes from running a massive search engine, along with a team of smart researchers, has led to some impressive accomplishments. Microsoft has become a leader in the world of machine learning, for example, demonstrating at a live event in 2012 a near flawless translation of spoken English into written Chinese. In March, I attended the company’s annual TechForum event and saw a handful of promising research projects dedicated to data analysis of all types — from streams of manufacturing data to the path of viral content through Twitter’s sprawling network.

It doesn’t always get the respect or the attention that Google does, but Microsoft is no slouch in the world of computer science research. If the company’s plans to eventually turn some of its projects into products – further incorporating machine learning into Xbox, Office and Windows, for example – actually help its bottom line, Ballmer can smile coyly knowing the seeds were planted in his tenure.

Legal

There’s a saying in tech that when companies stop innovating, they start litigating instead. Microsoft, under Ballmer’s tenure, would certainly support that theory.

In the last ten years, the company did more than most to fuel the tech sector’s ubiquitous patent lawsuits, suing rivals directly but also engaging in “privateering” — giving patents to shell companies in order to harass their competitors. These tactics brought Microsoft income through judgments and licensing revenue, but also damaged the overall smartphone economy, as billions of dollars were devoted to lawyers than rather than developers. During this time, the company also engaged in other dirty tricks in the patent wars such as paying bloggers who wrote slanted coverage about archrival Google — and all the while missing out on the massive smart phone market that is now dominated by Google and Apple, as noted above.

Microsoft’s litigate-not-innovate strategy also stretched into the search engine market, an area where the company furiously pressed antitrust regulators to sanction Google over allegations that it abused its market share. Meanwhile, in an ironic symbol of the company’s declining power, a decade long consent agreement with the Justice Department came to an end — a deal that was intended to protect consumers and competitors from Microsoft’s one-time might.

Overall Grade: B
— Jeff Roberts

Strategy/vision

This is perhaps the most important task for anyone who wants to be a technology leader: You must be able to understand your company, your industry and the future, maneuvering as needed to make sure you “skate to where the puck is going to be,” a phrase the late Steve Jobs was fond of borrowing from hockey legend Wayne Gretzky. This world moves too quickly to accommodate leaders who can’t put that puzzle together.

Under Ballmer, Microsoft chased a lot of pucks. Ballmer famously derided the iPhone. He was quite aware of the power that could be obtained from attracting mass numbers of developers to a platform, but has been forced to beg developers to work on Windows 8 and Windows Phone. He has protected the company’s twin Windows and Office client software monopolies on the PC and is a friendly face in the offices of Fortune 500 CIOs, but is kind of a joke among the younger executives that are building the companies of the future around mobile devices and cloud computing.

CEOs are judged on lots of things: revenue, profits, stock prices, employee satisfaction and leadership ability. But perhaps the easiest way to judge a leader is to ask whether or not the company you’ve led is stronger and more prepared for the future than the day you became the leader.

Microsoft will remain a force in the tech industry for years to come. Yet it’s hard to argue that the company is more relevant to the future of computing in August 2013 than it was in January 2000.

Anyone remember the UMPC?

If the report is true — and I suspect it is — this won’t actually be the first time we’ll see 7-inch slates running Microsoft Windows. I know because I still have a few old UMPCs, or ultra mobile portable computers, from a half-dozen years ago. Microsoft didn’t make the devices, but worked with hardware vendors to improve touch support for the operating system. Tablets hit the market from vendors such as TabletKiosk, OQO, Acer, Samsung and Asus to name a few. In fact, the Asus model ended up spawning the Eee PC netbook and starting a whole new market.

These small slates were chunky, only ran for three or four hours on a charge, and used inefficient resistive touchscreens. But there was niche appeal to geeks like me that valued mobility. I actually used a Samsung model paired with a 3G phone and folding Bluetooth keyboard as my primary computing device for months. Long before the tablets of today, I was able to get work done anywhere and I didn’t have to tote a large laptop with me. Remember, this was long before the light and thin laptops we have today.

What was wrong with those small slates

While the solution worked for me, it had definite downsides, many of which Microsoft is now in a position to overcome. Look at Microsoft’s Surface hardware and you’ll see great design in a thin package. Capacitive touchscreens have replaced junky resistive options. And instead of dealing with Windows XP crammed into a screen size it isn’t meant for, Microsoft’s Windows 8 touch interface could be a joy to use on a 7-inch tablet.

That last point may be the most important because the idea behind UMPCs are much the same as the tablets of today: a touch-friendly portable computer with access to hundreds of thousands of software titles. Microsoft and its hardware partners couldn’t deliver on that promise back in 2006, however. Hardware limitations were part of the problem, but the bigger issue was one of user experience: the Windows of yesteryear simply wasn’t designed for a low-resolution small screen.

The new Windows could address much of what was wrong with UMPCs

The “modern” — or what used to be called Metro — interface can work on a 7-inch tablet, however. That’s evidenced by Windows Phone 8, which uses the same interface on smartphones that are even smaller.

And that makes me think that a small Surface tablet has much to do with the Windows Blue effort, which is meant to bring more unification to Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. It’s even possible that Microsoft will opt to use Windows Phone 8 for a small slate, given that it will support 1080p resolution screens in the future. That’s an outside chance, though: I’d expect the Surface RT software on a 7-inch tablet.

What took you so long, Microsoft?

If Microsoft does create a 7-inch Surface, I’ll surely be interested; after all, I’m a fan of the UMPC concept as well as an early evangelist for the 7-inch slate size. But it’s disappointing that Microsoft is only just now realizing what some of us did in 2010: there’s a potentially big market for small slates. Again, from the WSJ report:

” … 7-inch tablets weren’t part of the company’s strategy last year, but Microsoft executives realized they needed a response to the rapidly growing popularity of smaller tablets like Google Inc.’s 7-inch Nexus, which was announced last summer, and the 7.9-inch iPad Mini introduced by Apple Inc. last October.”

Microsoft had the right idea with UMPCs, but it didn’t tweak the user interface enough. Sure, the devices were expensive and built with typical PC hardware, not components optimized for tablets. That barrier is long gone now, though. Had Microsoft put some serious effort into its new touch interface in a small form factor Surface sooner, the tablet market — and maybe even the PC market — might look different today.